America's New Worlds Trade, Employment, and the Columbian Exchange

US History Summary Historical Themes (HST 200) America's New Worlds: Trade, Employment, and the Columbian Exchange Proponents of European colonization said that the Americas were brimming with valuable resources. Establishing colonies became intertwined with enhancing national dignity and glory, and no country wanted to fall behind. However, slavery and forced labor were commonplace because to the harsh realities of life in the Americas, which included exploitation, brutality, and a strong labor shortage. There was a clear contrast between freedom and slavery everywhere throughout America. Another significant influence on the Americas was the Columbian Trade, in which Europeans carried illnesses, plants, and animals both ways over the Atlantic. Workplace Systems A civilization needs physical power to labor its fields, construct its communities, and produce its basic resources. The only sources of power available to humanity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the wind, water, animals, and other people. A severe labor shortage that plagued Europeans across the Americas resulted from a shortage of colonists to carry out the work required to maintain the colonies. Conquistadors who were able to demonstrate their loyalty to the monarchy were awarded encomiendas, or the legal privilege to use local labor. This approach mirrored the colonization philosophy of the Spanish: the monarch rewarded conquistadors who successfully expanded the empire. Encomiendas were awarded to several local peoples who had allied with the conquistadors, such as the Tlaxcalan; among them was Malintzin, the Nahua lady who assisted Cortés in defeating the Mexica. The Spanish thought that by conquering local peoples, they would have the right to labor for them and, in exchange, introduce Catholicism to them. Although the Spanish saw local people as little more than animals of burden, they brutally abused the connection, which in principle was based on reciprocal duties. Persuaded of their ownership of the territory and its inhabitants, they aimed to regulate indigenous labor and enforce their perceived religious convictions on the land's occupants. Everywhere they lived, native peoples rejected attempts to alter their long-held beliefs as well as the work requirements. In fact, a lot of people stuck to their faith or adopted only the aspects of Catholicism that made sense to them. There was a lot of violence in conjunction with the encomiendas system (Figure 2.14). Bartolomé de Las Casas, a Spaniard, criticized the harshness of Spanish authority. One of the first Spanish immigrants in the Spanish West Indies was Las Casas, a Dominican monk. He was the beneficiary of an encomienda during his early years in the Americas and held Native Americans as slaves. He changed his mind, nevertheless, after seeing the brutality with which encomenderos—those who receive encomiendas—treated the aboriginal population. In 1515, Las Casas renounced his encomienda, freed his native slaves, and started to promote the humane treatment of indigenous peoples. He advocated for new laws that would do away with slavery and the encomienda system, which became known as the New Laws. Workplace Systems A civilization needs physical power to labor its fields, construct its communities, and produce its basic resources. The only sources of power available to humanity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the wind, water, animals, and other people. A severe labor shortage that plagued Europeans across the Americas resulted from a shortage of colonists to carry out the work required to maintain the colonies. Conquistadors who were able to demonstrate their loyalty to the monarchy were awarded encomiendas, or the legal privilege to use local labor. This approach mirrored the colonization philosophy of the Spanish: the monarch rewarded conquistadors who successfully expanded the empire. Encomiendas were awarded to several local peoples who had allied with the conquistadors, such as the Tlaxcalan; among them was Malintzin, the Nahua lady who assisted Cortés in defeating the Mexica. The Spanish thought that by conquering local peoples, they would have the right to labor for them and, in exchange, introduce Catholicism to them. Although the Spanish saw local people as little more than animals of burden, they brutally abused the connection, which in principle was based on reciprocal duties. Persuaded of their ownership of the territory and its inhabitants, they aimed to regulate indigenous labor and enforce their perceived religious convictions on the land's occupants. Everywhere they lived, native peoples rejected attempts to alter their long-held beliefs as well as the work requirements. In fact, a lot of people stuck to their faith or adopted only the aspects of Catholicism that made sense to them. There was a lot of violence in conjunction with the encomiendas system (Figure 2.14). Bartolomé de Las Casas, a Spaniard, criticized the harshness of Spanish authority. One of the first Spanish immigrants in the Spanish West Indies was Las Casas, a Dominican monk. He was the beneficiary of an encomienda during his early years in the Americas and held Native Americans as slaves. He changed his mind, nevertheless, after seeing the brutality with which encomenderos—those who receive encomiendas—treated the aboriginal population. In 1515, Las Casas renounced his encomienda, freed his native slaves, and started to promote the humane treatment of indigenous peoples. He advocated for new laws that would do away with slavery and the encomienda system, which became known as the New Laws. The Black Legend—the notion that the Spanish were ruthless conquerors who had no respect for human life—was partly inspired by Las Casas's accounts of the terrible treatment Native Americans endured at the hands of the Spanish. It should come as no surprise that Spain's imperial adversaries shared this opinion of the Spanish people. The concept of Spain's brutality was used by English authors and others to further their own colonial endeavors. They used the Spanish as a prop to support their own efforts, which they saw as more compassionate. However, Native Americans were not the only group in the Americas to benefit from cheap labor; by the middle of the sixteenth century, Africans had become a significant part of the labor force, producing the cash crops of tobacco and sugar for European markets. Nevertheless, all European colonists held a contemptuous attitude toward Native Americans. Because they believed that Africans were not Christians, Europeans used this belief to justify slavery. People who were enslaved suffered in appalling circumstances and were denied control over their life. They opposed slavery whenever they had the chance, and their opposition was violently put down. Indeed, one of the main tools used by European slaveholders to establish dominance and enforce their will was sexual, mental, and physical abuse. The Portuguese took the lead in the development of the transatlantic slave trade; enslaved persons imported from the interior of Africa were held in holding pens in slave "factories" on the continent's west coast, such as Elmina Castle in Ghana. Eventually, other European colonial powers would build comparable colonies on the West African coast, imitating the Portuguese. Portuguese slave traders and sellers were found across the Americas, especially in South America and the Caribbean, where sugar was the main commodity exported, dealing with Spanish, Dutch, and English colonists. Thousands of Africans held as slaves were forced to do the grueling physical work of cultivating, harvesting, and processing sugarcane. The lengthy cane stalks had to be manually chopped by enslaved workers before being transported to a mill so that the cane juice could be collected. The extracted cane juice was cooked until it became a dark, crystalline sugar, which required further curing in designated curing buildings in order to extract the molasses. Refined sugar was the end product, and the remaining molasses may be used to make rum via distillation. Every step was risky and required a lot of work. According to Las Casas, there were 50,000 slaves in Hispaniola by the year 1550. It is incorrect, therefore, to believe that all Africans who arrived in America during the early years of European discovery did so as prisoners. A number of free African men participated in expeditions, such as when Cortés led a group of conquistadors in an attack on Tenochtitlan. However, one of the most devastating effects in the newly formed Atlantic World was African enslavement. BUSINESS IN THE MODERN WORLD From the 1500s until the late 1700s, European perspectives of wealth were formed by the economic theory of mercantilism. Mercantilism maintained that the world's wealth was finite and could only be expressed in gold and silver bullion. Nations needed to mine these valuable raw minerals from their colonial conquests in order to accumulate money and achieve power. Nations used commerce, colonialism, and invasion to enhance their part of the New World's wealth during the era of European discovery. Rather than supporting free trade, mercantilists believed that commerce should be regulated by the government in order to generate prosperity. According to this theory, colonies existed to support the colonial country. Those who supported mercantilism opposed letting their countries engage in open commerce with other countries. Spain's economic policy was influenced by mercantilist principles. Every year, Spanish treasure boats that sailed from Cuba into Spain were filled with cargoes of gold and silver by local workers or slave labor. The immense weight of the wealth aboard these ships made them creak, since the Spanish had discovered vast reserves of gold and silver in the New World. For instance, on the mountain known as Potosí in South America, Spanish settlers found abundant veins of silver metal and established a town with the same name. Potosí was a boom town throughout the sixteenth century, drawing in immigrants from other countries and aboriginal people from all civilizations. Colonial mercantilism, essentially a collection of protectionist measures aimed at advancing national interests, depended on a number of variables, including raw material-rich colonies, inexpensive labor, colonial allegiance to the home government, and command over the shipping industry. Under this method, the colonies returned their raw resources back to their home nation after being collected by local workers or slave labor. The motherland returned several completed goods, including clothes, tools, and textiles. Only their own nation allowed the colonists to acquire these commodities; trading with other nations was outlawed. The New World was similarly subjected to the commodification process in the 1500s and early 1600s. Native Americans utilized American silver, tobacco, and other objects for rituals; they eventually became European goods having a marketable worth that could be purchased and sold. For example, the Inca people of the Andes exclusively drank chicha, a maize beer, ceremonially prior to the advent of the Spanish. Chicha was not used as a ceremonial material when it was found; instead, it became a commodity that the Spanish purchased and traded for. As a result, commodification transformed indigenous economies and accelerated the rise of early commercial capitalism. European colonial powers were promised prosperity from resources found in the New World, ranging from flora to animal pelts. A COLUMBIAN TRANSACTION Plants, animals, and illnesses that European settlers transported across the Atlantic transformed both sides of the waterway's topography and way of life. The term "Columbian Exchange" refers to these two-way interactions between the Americas and Europe/Africa. Sugar turned out to be the most significant commodity in the Atlantic World. In actuality, sugar had the same economic significance as oil does now. Rival European nations engaged in conflicts for control of some of the greatest sugar producing regions as they rushed to establish sugar plantations in the Americas. Even though refined sugar was accessible in the Old World, sugarcane was scarce and difficult to cultivate in Europe due to the region's harsher environment. In 1493, Columbus introduced sugar to Hispaniola, and by the late 1490s, the new crop was flourishing there. The Spanish began constructing sugar mills on the island in the early 1500s. During the course of the next century of colonialism, sugar manufacturing hubs emerged in the Caribbean islands and most other tropical regions. Tobacco, although not as valuable as sugar, was nonetheless a valuable revenue crop for Europeans. For centuries before to European contact, indigenous populations cultivated it for therapeutic and ceremonial uses, either smoking it in pipes or powdering it for use as snuff. They thought that smoking may increase knowledge and focus. For others, using it meant reaching a state of enchantment, transformation, or divination; going into a spiritual realm. Before 1492, tobacco was unknown in Europe and was first frowned upon. Because tobacco usage produces smoke and flames, the early Spanish explorers saw tribes using tobacco as evidence of the Devil's dominance in the New World and as proof of the indigenous' cruelty. But over time, colonists from Europe became acclimated to smoking and even developed the habit, which they carried across to the other side of the Atlantic. Europeans, like Native Americans, believed that tobacco had therapeutic qualities and could treat skin irritations and headaches. Nevertheless, tobacco was not widely imported by Europeans until the 1590s. Grown for the worldwide market by colonists from England, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal, it became the first genuinely global product at that time. Europeans were also exposed to chocolate by native peoples; it was manufactured from cacao beans and was a kind of money used by the Aztecs in Mesoamerica. Native Americans from Mesoamerica drank unsweetened chocolate mixed with achiote (a spice), vanilla, and chili peppers. For those who could afford it, this chocolate beverage, known as xocolatl, was a regular item and a component of ceremonial rites like marriage. The stimulant theobromine found in chocolate may have contributed to the indigenous people's belief that eating it transported them closer to the holy realm. Over time, however, they brought chocolate to Spain from the New World, where they thought it was a disgusting habit and even dubbed it "the Devil's vomit." Originally, chocolate could only be found at the Spanish court, where the nobility combined it with spices and sugar. Subsequently, when chocolate became more widely available, it became known as a love cure. The transatlantic migration of plants such as tobacco and cocoa shows how European customs and behaviors were altered by the New World's discovery. In return, Europeans altered the New World, bringing with them species from the Old World to the Americas. Christopher Columbus introduced pigs, horses, cows, and chicks to the Caribbean islands on his second journey. Subsequent explorers did the same, bringing in new species or bringing back extinct ones (like horses). These animals fared better than humans in their new surroundings, frequently prospering in both the wild and domestication due to their reduced susceptibility to illness. Animals from the New World were also seen by Europeans. Many European Christians thought the Americas, devoid of Christianity, were the domain of the Devil and his henchmen because they saw the globe as a theater of conflict between God and Satan. This correlation was supported by the unusual, sometimes weird looks and behaviors of species found in the Americas that were previously unknown to European explorers, such as venomous snakes, sloths, and manatees. But as time went on, people started to depend less and less on the Bible and more on natural world observation. One of the key effects of the early globalization period is this change in perspective, from seeing the Bible as the ultimate source of all learned knowledge to placing more faith on observation or empiricism. Microbes were also travelers between the Americas, Africa, and Europe. Microbes are quiet, unseen living organisms with grave and destructive effects. Because they had never been exposed to illnesses from across the Atlantic, Native Americans lacked antibodies to them. Despite efforts to cure the illnesses, European explorers inadvertently carried chickenpox, measles, mumps, and smallpox, which devastated indigenous peoples, eradicating whole groups and severely damaging others. Certain indigenous peoples in eastern North America believed that disease-related deaths were an act of aggression. Some tribes, like the Iroquois, waged "mourning wars" or raids, seizing the enemy as a means of easing their sorrow and providing a replacement for the dead. The convicts were "requickened," or given the identity of a deceased person, in a unique ceremony, and adopted by the grieving family to replace their deceased. Mourning battles became more intense and widespread as the death toll from illness increased.